Holes
by viva los angeles
Summary: Set after "Wannabe in the Weeds." Brennan grieves. BxB.


**A/N: I like this one better. AAH Booth I love you! Anywho, the lyrics are from "Holes" by Rascal Flatts off the **_**Feels Like Today**_** album—if you haven't heard it, go buy it NOW. It might be my favorite song on that entire CD. Be careful because it might make you cry.**

--

_And one deep inside me determined to stay  
They don't get any bigger but they don't go away_

"Booth, stay with me," she said as she compressed the wound in his chest. She said it in the ambulance as the siren blared, she said it in the hospital room every night when she visited, and she chanted it in the waiting room like a mantra.

It didn't work.

When they knew his time was growing short, a doctor emerged from the ICU and she stood. "We've done everything we can," he started, and her shoulders slumped in response. "He's not going to make it through the night—his lungs and heart are too damaged from the shot. Do you want to come in and say goodbye?" She simply nodded and followed the doctor into the room.

The Booth on the bed was very different from "her" Booth. This Booth is pale and quiet, his eyes closed and his chest fluttering with shallow breaths. She put her hand over the bandages on his chest and closed her eyes, tears escaping against her will, and then took his right hand in both her own. "Booth, I'll miss you. You've changed my life." She bent to kiss his forehead and whispered against his cheek, "I love you. I hope you go to your heaven."

Backing slowly from the room, she turned down the hall and sat down in an under-cushioned chair, shoulders trembling as her head dropped into her hands. Angela was strategically positioned right next to Brennan, and as Brennan cried Angela rubbed her shoulder.

That is the last time any of the squints saw Brennan cry. After Booth was declared dead, she simply showed up to work like nothing happened. She cooperated with the new agent the FBI sent to replace Booth, but they don't particularly get along. There is no camaraderie, no friendship. Brennan just does her job to solve the crimes and save the lives, she told herself as she inspected bones.

Her coworkers are careful not to mention _the name_ in front of her—they don't want to see her reaction or cause her pain. Some of them have cautiously urged her to talk to Sweets about "things," but she ignores their advice and simply works. All day she works to keep herself busy, to avoid so much as thinking about him, but as hard as she tries, his memory is like a migraine—keeps coming back in waves and compounding until she is so tired she simply collapses.

And she does collapse, every night when she arrives in her home. She changes into her favorite pajama pants and a t-shirt of his that she asked to have, a big one that is so overwashed and worn that it is the softest thing she owns, and curls up on the couch to read a book. Occasionally she pops her Foreigner CD in and pumps up "Hot Blooded" so high that it rattles her coffee table. She clutches a pillow to her chest and cries as the song plays, heaving sobs only slightly smaller than the pain in her heart, and sometimes falls asleep that way.

She is mad at him for leaving her. Despite her scientific mind's understanding that death is inevitable for everyone, including herself, she can't help the anger that rises every time she thinks about him. That bullet was meant for her, and she would have happily taken it. She feels guilty for his death. But more than anything, she can't believe he _left_ her like that. Booth is—_was_—a fighter. She is so tired of having to correct herself to the past tense when thinking about him.

Her attempts to convince herself otherwise have failed completely. She _loved_ Booth. He was her everything—she depended on him to save her life, to help find clues, and to be a living, breathing shoulder to lean on when she got tired of corpses. He is gone forever, and she will never see him again, never feel the rise and fall of his chest against her cheek when work got to be too much. She would never hear his voice at her door or feel his breath in her hair. His phone ringing would never save her from Sweets' office again. And she isn't sure she will ever heal from the pain of losing him knowing that he gave his life for hers.

Despite her hatred for alcoholics and drunken people in general, she gets up from the couch and pours herself a scotch in the kitchen. Returning to her warmed spot on the couch, she sips at the drink as she reaches over to retrieve a small framed picture from the coffee table. Her thumb traces the simple frame around the little Booth in the picture, his face furrowed into the expression he wore so often. It makes her sad that the only picture they could get her was not one of him smiling—she misses the warmth that radiated from his genuine smile. He was her own personal sunshine, at least, most of the time until somebody would cross his path—he could be a one-man hurricane when he so desired.

As she finishes off the drink and lies out on the couch with the lamp and stereo still on, she thinks of the kiss. It was blackmail, yes, but it was the most fun blackmail she had ever experienced. And _damn_ he was a good kisser. She hadn't wanted to let go but, alas, appearances were everything and she was so good at pretending she didn't have feelings for him. Her knuckles turn white from her grip on the picture as she turns her head to the side and drifts off to sleep, trying not to think of the next day's funeral and instead focusing on how safe she felt in his arms.

_Holes dig in and surround me  
God knows what I'm gonna do  
To fill in these holes left by you_


End file.
